Nothing has given me more hope about The Mist's worth than this, the final paragraph of James Rocchi's rave review at Cinematical:
A world of yes. A giant spider is a giant spider is a giant spider, as Gertrude Stein once wisely said.
.
"Many viewers and reviewers will try to find deeper meaning in The Mist -- the initial mistfall's chaos evoking the morning of 9-11, the subsequent decision to hole up in the store evoking Katrina evacuees, the conflict between Jane and Harden emblematic of some large-scale conflict in the American psyche played out in miniature. But to paraphrase Dr. Freud -- or maybe Dr. Frankenstein -- sometimes a monster is just a monster. King's story dates back to 1980, first year of the Reagan presidency, like Loverboy's first record and Rubik's cube; it's held up a lot better, though, especially after Darabont's polish and presentation. Both King and Darabont know that sometimes a monster's just a monster; what they also know, and prove with The Mist, is that in the hands of talented people behind and in front of the camera, sometimes 'just' a monster is more than enough."
A world of yes. A giant spider is a giant spider is a giant spider, as Gertrude Stein once wisely said.
.
Posts
4 comments:
Okay, so, is it safe to talk about the movie yet?
I'll throw this out there: I went with two people to see No Country for Old Men today, and because the newspaper had printed the show times wrong, we ended up with three hours to kill, so I talked them into seeing The Mist first.
All three of us agreed that The Mist had the better ending.
the ending, it's divergence from the novella, fucking disturbed me.
I sometimes let my 10 year old watch horror movies I know to be "ok" (no Hostel for him...Scream, ok) and being a HUGE fan of this story, I knew it would be a "safe" horror movie for him. And then I had to ground him and didn't bring him. I am so fucking glad he was grounded, I think the changed ending would have disturbed him for life. It's disturbed me enough I became ill.
My first thought was that it made up for having a happy ending slapped onto Cujo. Yes, it was a disturbing ending, but it also had a very good point to make.
I don't buy the comparison. Cujo took a "sad" ending and made it a "happy" one; the Mist took an ending steeped in the unknown (which is a better metaphor about life, IMO, not knowing what's ahead) and made it an ending steeped in a complete down view of the human character. I really don't think the movie needed Tom Jane's character to end on killing everyone else only to discover immediately thereafter (which is so very cliched) that his previous actions were wholly pointless.
Post a Comment